Mopping Up Is Hard To Do

By Michael Lemonick

Anti-Taliban forces finally took control of the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan only to find that Osama bin Laden is still unaccounted for. Yes, there's a chance the world's most wanted man is buried, alive or dead, in a mountainside cave. But U.S. intelligence officials doubt it. More likely, they say, he is hiding in the hills or has slipped into Pakistan.

There are hundreds of caves left to be scoured in Tora Bora, and U.S. intelligence officials say that one part of the region alone has some 240 roads and trails by which he could escape to Pakistan--if he hasn't already. The U.S. and its allies have nabbed only a few key al-Qaeda members and have not caught Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. But at least three of his top ministers are in custody. "These are fairly senior folks," an intelligence official told TIME, though their names were not released. More may be among the 7,000 or so prisoners in opposition custody, but sifting through them to ID high-level operatives will not be easy.

Nor will the task of rounding up Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters still at large in the hills of Afghanistan and those who have escaped to Pakistan. Thousands of Pakistani troops have been deployed in the area, and hundreds are searching the valleys and the road from Kohat to Parachinar--where five al-Qaeda fighters are still at large after 32 escaped from Pakistani custody on Wednesday. Seven Pakistani soldiers and 10 al-Qaeda members died in the vicious gun battles that followed. Says Wakil Khan, a local official whose men killed three escapees: "Earlier we thought one al-Qaeda man is equal to 10 of our men. But after the shoot-out, it appears each one of them was equal to 50 of us."

The roundup wasn't made any easier by the fact that several villages in the region are strongly pro-al-Qaeda. It would be difficult for the authorities to lay hands on the escapees if they took refuge there. The 10 al-Qaeda men who died were given hero's funerals in Parachinar. Thousands showed up to honor them, cursing Pakistani authorities for killing Muslims. That sort of sympathy could make it tough to get bin Laden if he is in Pakistan, even with the help of tribal leaders who have promised to cooperate. Says Kenton Keith, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition: "The process of rounding up everyone who is on the run in the region is not finished. [And] we simply don't know where bin Laden is."

--By Michael Lemonick. Reported by Hannah Bloch/Islamabad, Ghulam Hasnain/Parachinar and Douglas Waller/Washington

With reporting by Hannah Bloch/Islamabad, Ghulam Hasnain/Parachinar and Douglas Waller/Washington